Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday June 16, 2011 @10:47AM
from the there-can-be-only-five-or-six dept.

oDDmON oUT writes "Techcrunch has a piece about Facebook's Project Spartan, which aims to deliver app store functionality through the use of HTML5 in the iOS Safari browser. Given Facebook's shifting sands privacy stances, as well as their track record with their "trusted partners", I don't think I'd be alone in wondering if this wouldn't put a great big stake in the heart of the assertion that iOS is the most secure operating system in existence today."

This is one of a series of "Facebook-taking-on-X" trial balloons, where X is a well-known, highly-capitalized company with a real business model. The last wave had X = Google, which made no sense at all because Google's search rocks, while Facebook can barely tie its shoes with its own search (try searching comments on your own Wall if you don't believe me).

The legions of Cloud fanboys will be all over this, because Facebook can't really create apps in the same way that the iTunes store can, so of course it means transient operation. (Ignore slow download times and bad performance because everything has to run on a scripting engine.) Techcrunch isn't much on actual analysis, but they sure do a great job as a press release outlet.